Access to justice through the prism of uniformity of judicial practice in Ukraine

Abstract

Different perception of relatively new concepts is one of the challenges of implementation of the new terminology in Ukraine. So, the purpose of this article is to study the interconnection of two concepts – the ‘access to justice’ and ‘uniformity of judicial practice’, – keeping in mind the European standards set in Rule of Law Report, CCEJ Opinion No. 20 and in ECtHR case law. Both concepts were in the focus of a number of studies during last decade, however, the interconnections between them was not considered specifically. Also, many publications confirmed that the critical approach to the past (both Soviet as well as pre-Soviet, meaning imperial Russian) was not predominant; examples of this is quoting the Rule of Law Report, Consultative Council of European Judges Opinion No. 20 (2017) and ECtHR jurisprudence alongside works of Russian imperial jurists thus many Ukrainian legal scholars were eager to find “deeper roots” in many modern concepts in the works of Russian scholars of XIX-XX century. Therefore, it is crucial that such concepts as ‘access to justice’ are used correctly. The findings show that the uniformity of judicial practice by ensuring stability and predictability, promotes access to justice, especially in so-called “classic” cases, regulated by longstanding legislation. However, modern world and life in it is quite dynamic, social relationships constantly develop and new legal disputes (due to technological progress or caused by the Russian armed aggression against Ukraine) arise for which there is no case law at all. After the full scale invasion an obvious question arises about how the judicial practice will develop to ensure access to justice in new category of cases, both civil (i.e. regarding compensation of damage caused to the real estate) and criminal, compared to those that were happened since 2014 and were classified as terrorist or general criminal, although some of them had signs of war crimes. In this context, the leadership role of the Supreme Court is important, given its mandate to ensure the uniformity of judicial practice and keeping in mind the dynamic character of the legal relations.